Arts & Entertainment

Yesteryear at Middletown Arts Center

Tell us if you can identify some of the old art pieces and places featured in works in the above video.

There was a time when the concept of a was nothing more than a shuttered storage space and a dream.

That was more than a decade ago.

Now, earmarking the of its opening in 2007, a lot of souvenir artwork from the days of fundraising and inaugural shows have been brought back to the MAC.

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Do you remember? Some of the pieces back on display again are the popular fundraising contest pieces from the show dubbed Conestruction 2003, which then paid a unique creative tribute to construction cones.

Artists and amateur arts enthusiasts alike were asked to use the cones as the base of a sculpture and incorporate the cone aspect into the piece’s title. Patch caught up with some of the showcased popular pieces of the past and found “Cone-alisa,” a cone dedicated to the classic Mona Lisa painting, by Leonardo Da Vinci. There was also a “Cone-yote,” (coyote) long before coyotes wandered into Middletown. Can you spot these two “cone-centric” gems?

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Here’s how the themed fundraiser projects worked: To participate, people were asked to make a donation as little as $25 and as much as $250. Participants were also invited to sponsor projects and could sponsor more than one, as could corporations. People were also invited to choose an artist to craft their cone. The year before, in 2002, there was a Duckoration project and in 2004, for which rubber ducks were the central focus of sculptures. In 2004, another fundraiser, entitled Hats off to the Arts, featured a decorated top hat motif.

There were also Middletown-themed acrylic-painted panels, which were used to decorate the somewhat spiffed-up Banfield Storage building when it served as a temporary MAC.

Take a look at some of the scenes. Tell us if you can identify a few historic sites, such as a couple of landmark historic churches and graveyards, sites on the Bayshore, Whipporwill Valley Road, a historic covered bridge, and more.

Can you tell us the legends that surround Whipporwill Valley Road? Do you remember who was murdered and mercilessly dumped on the side of that dirt road?  Can you name some of the other sites in the paintings? Give it a try.

Take a look or two at the video above. Enjoy and hazard a guess or two in the comments section below.


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